Tipsheet

Lunacy: School Districts Begin New School Year with Mask Mandates Still in Place, and Worse...

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  September 06, 2022 10:25 AM

Just to restate what we've written about many times before, mask mandates don't work -- and they're especially needless and ineffective in schools.  It's worse than that, actually.  Forced masking can have an affirmatively harmful effect on some young children, rendering continued requirements not only anti-science, but almost abusive.  We have known the facts about kids and COVID for at least two years at this point, and yet, as the 2022-2023 academic year is getting underway, a number of districts across the country are imposing this data-defying insanity upon students yet again.  Philadelphia is one of the most science-hostile jurisdictions in America, so it's no great surprise that they're participating in the latest idiotic misadventure:

Philly schools will require students and staff to wear masks for the first 10 days of the school year and then could go mask-optional after that, district officials announced Friday. “This is an extra precaution for everyone’s health and well-being,” said Kendra McDow, the district’s chief medical officer...District Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., who recently succeeded outgoing Superintendent William Hite, said Philadelphia schools continue to be “among the safest places for our students to be.” Watlington said the district will take a “multi-layered” safety approach this school year, including air purification, touchless hand sanitizing stations, and thorough and frequent school cleanings...Students and staff at PreK Head Start programs will still be required to wear masks at all times, in accordance with federal guidelines...The district’s staff vaccine mandate will remain in place, which requires all staff members hired after Oct 1, 2021, to be fully vaccinated.

They're mindlessly playing all the restrictionist hits, not matter how reality and shifted. The masks are pointless-to-detrimental, including or especially for pre-schoolers, for crying out loud.  The school cleanings are useless.  That's not how the virus works.  This has been established for a very long time.  The vaccine mandate is also ridiculous, considering that even the CDC has finally stopped distinguishing between vaccinated and unvaccinated people in its quarantine guidance, given that the vaccines do not prevent transmission.  Meanwhile, it's even worse in New Jersey's largest school district, where mystical, left-wing superstition continues to reign:

Even through summer programs, during which Newark Public Schools reported 82 total COVID cases among staff and students from July 4 through Aug. 7, the district’s mask rules didn’t budge. Now, as students gear up to start a new school year on Sept. 6, the district mandate will remain – a recommendation that NPS officials say comes from the city’s health department — leaving face masks as a back-to-school item many parents would rather do without...Many families are growing impatient with the district’s wait-and-see approach, saying they feel “ignored” by the district about their concerns. “My child cannot start yet another school year wearing masks when the majority of children throughout New Jersey and the country are returning to school with some kind of normalcy,” said Anna Da Silva, as she watched her 6-year-old daughter run around without a mask among other kids at a Newark park on Wednesday. “I feel frustrated and in disbelief that we’re here once again,” said Da Silva, whose first grader attends the new Ironbound Academy Elementary School.

Philly at least has a stupid, arbitrary end date in mind for the mandate, whereas Newark's is open-ended. A number of the news stories on this policy feature a photo of the district superintendent double masked and wearing gloves.  How "safe."  I'll also note that as controversial new programs come on line, second graders in Newark will reportedly be introduced to new curricula on sexuality and gender identity -- and will apparently have to wear masks as they're exposed to those ideas.  The priorities speak for themselves.  Washington, DC's COVID mandates and decrees are some of the craziest and least equitable in the country, with a number of other blue areas still clinging to as much madness as they can.  It's hard to believe this snapshot of lunacy was taken in September of 2022.  California:


And down in free Florida, Charlie Crist's radical running mate continues to unwittingly make in-kind contributions to the DeSantis re-election campaign.  You can have Florida as it exists, dear voters, or you can have these people in charge:

“Join us for a canvass in Hollywood or Hallandale Beach to talk with your neighbors about electing Democrats up and down the ballot in 2022!” they say. Hernandez-Mats is supposed to arrive at 1 P.M. to “welcome back the first shift of canvassers and send off the second group.” Anna Fusco, current President of the Broward Teachers Union, told those planning to canvas with the Florida Democrats to “plan to wear a face mask that snugly covers your nose and mouth and comfortable walking shoes.” “Don’t forget the sunscreen!” she said.

I know we may not bat an eye at it, especially given the outdoor masking nuttery, but it should still be somewhat wild to see the teachers union openly campaigning for to "elect Democrats up and down the ballot."  I'm not saying is extraordinary.  It's normal.  But the teachers union is a partisan organization that exists for politics, not students.  In exchange for their activism and huge financial contributions to Democrats (effectively furnished by taxpayers, given who pays public school teachers' salaries), the unions get to exert their influence on all sorts of policies, up to and including changing the Official Science to align with their selfish agenda.  When parents try to push back against the powerful government education establishment, the FBI is sicced on them.  What's most disturbing is how so many powerful people refuse to admit error on any of the terrible mishandling of children and schools during the pandemic, despite the mounting and conclusive evidence that it inflicted terrible harms on millions of kids.  They actually oppose normalcy, and occasionally admit it:

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Also on that virtual 'back to school' roundtable convened by the White House last week?  Randi Weingarten, of course, because accountability isn't something in which they ever feel obligated to engage.  They gaslight and revise history, hoping no one will notice:


And it's hard to escape the conclusion that many of them would do the exact same thing all over again:


I'll leave you with my comments on this subject, building off of this post, on television over the weekend: